Ben Affleck and Kevin Smith have been friends ever since 1995’s “Mallrats,” where Ben played Shannon — the Fashionable Male proprietor with a penchant for screwing women in extremely uncomfortable places.

But it turns out that forcible fornication location might not have been in the back of a Volkswagen, but in Ben’s cramped real life panic room. Yes, during our conversation to promote Kevin’s newest movie — “Cop Out” (now on DVD) — the subject of Ben and his one-time secret nook came up.

I promised Kevin that if he told me the whole story I’d get as many of you to buy the “Cop Out” as possible, so before we get to Ben’s A-list hideaways, allow me to say that “Cop Out” is a gleeful 80’s throwback cop comedy. In particular Sean William Scott kills it.

Ok, so now that I’ve done my due diligence, I will allow Kevin — who weaves one hell of a good yarn — to spin some gold:

“I bought Ben Affleck’s house in 2003. But when we first came out here two years before, he was having a BBQ with a bunch of people – he was very proud, showing off the house. Rightfully so, it’s a gorgeous house. I’ve constantly benefited from Ben Affleck’s excellent taste. So he’s showing us around and says, ‘I can’t wait to show you this, when I was building this, I knew you’d love it. Come with me to my bedroom.’

He brings me into this office off the master bedroom, which is now my master bedroom. And in this office is a beautiful bookcase and he says, watch this. He reaches over and under the bookshelf there is a hidden button *click* and the bookshelf pushes back, Batman style. At that point I fully expected Ben to say, ‘lets go fight crime in Los Angeles!’ But it wasn’t – he says, ‘dude I built a panic room!’

I couldn’t wait to go into it, I was expecting The Bat Cave. It was literally a 2×2 room. It was tiny. It might have been a small bathroom back in the day. The panic room had a safe in it, a video monitor and a phone so in case someone came you could hide in there.

From the outside, it was very Hollywood. It was astounding. The moment you got inside .. it’s not what you’re hoping for from Ben Affleck’s secret room. There is not a staircase that leads you down to a ski boat that takes you onto the bay.

We don’t even use it any more – it’s filled with our kids old Christmas gifts. Plus, no one’s panicked in this house. No one’s trying to come in here and steal me. I’m not Ben Affleck.”